Well, supposedly today you can get a discount at Kinokuniya Manhattan if you dressed up, but be sure that instead of cosplaying I’ll be cooped up at home and down some shows with friends nearby who I haven’t seen in a while.
It beats eating ice cream while watching the Honey & Clover movie in celebration of an exciting but disappointing Saimoe 2007 final (not that I did that…). Instead, we went out for dimsum at this nice and hidden-away local place that served very delicious chicken feet and beef dishes. I suppose if I was by myself I’d rather distract and blank out by crunching a lot of sketches from Danbooru into VectorMagic. Damn you tj, damn you.
But what is really bothering me is how my taste for anime on TV has seriously derailed from the mainstream. It gets hard for me to find something to watch that my friends and I can equally share. It would have to be either something really funny or something that’s purely “shounen jump”-like but not as bogged down with terrible episode counts (like Naruto), or full of self-infused fandom (like Suzumiya Haruhi).
It’s a little sad to remind myself that I know of no seiyuu fans in my proximity. It’s only at cons where I get to talk to people about voice actresses face to face. Something like this requires consultation among the people! At the end, I settled for Ai Nonaka because she is pretty looking at least in pictures. While she can’t sing, her unique voice and competent acting skills balance things out. Also I guess this past year I’ve enjoyed her roles more so than ever. Sure she may have tried to pander along the lines of Yukarin or Aaya but I think she has a more natural air about it.
The strange thing is, 10 years ago we just couldn’t quite do this–even the most popular voice actresses were passable at best. Girls like Minorin didn’t really take on the more otaku-poi career route. Must be a shift for production and producers. And I’m sure good-lookers like Kanako Sakai probably would not have even bothered. What does that make Halko Momoi, who sort of started half in, half out? A trend setter?
November 4th, 2007 at 2:26 am
10 years ago my vote will go to either Tange Sakura or Kouda Mariko. They are cute even by today’s standards. :)
Anyway LULZ at the result and it’s not really surprising either since all the winners has big anime support (Haruhi, SEED etc), and I’m happy it wasn’t Hirano Aya that won.
November 4th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
“Cute” doesn’t cut it even today.
Well, that’s why Hekiru Shiina got so big I think. She tapped a market before it really grew to the state things are today.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Tange Sakura still did Kinomoto Sakura and a few other moe characters, she’s got some emotional range too (her Ryvius role was excellent), she had that squeaky singing voice that’s not unlike Tamura Yukari (in a good way), cute smile and a nice pair (lulz when all the seiyuu ota were going (*´Д｀)ãƒã‚¡ãƒã‚¡ at her back then). She was pretty high quality back then and I would still say she still qualifies today. ;)
Kouda Mariko was pretty much your prototype idol seiyuu – she made a bigger splash as a singer/performer rather than being a big voice actor.
That said, they *were* pretty rare back then, now it’s more of a dime in a dozen thing. Idolisation of the seiyuu industry had progressed pretty far and I still remember a lot of the people back then (some still do now) whom predicted the doom and gloom of the seiyuu industry by focusing on looks rather than skillz, but I think they’ve been proven quite wrong now that we have more and more seiyuu that are good in more ways than one.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Meh, neither of them are all that good looking. It’s not to say people didn’t have their die hard favorites back then, but I don’t think they would compare as TV material.
And IMO, it’s good to be a good performer but it’s not required to get a lot of fans. That’s more of a matter of your producer. It helps, but meh.